Shadow form mana cost

I was just curious as to what the reasoning was behind the high mana cost of shadow form. It kills our DPS to not be in form, and we cannot heal while in it. Those penalties alone should grant a low mana cost on that spell. I dont believe it should be a free spell, but it should be on par with a Druid as far as mana cost.

Re: Shadow form mana cost

First off, Shadowform is supposed to be expensive by design. If it's cost was negligible, who's to stop the power-shifting every 6 seconds for empowered DoTs/MF/MB, and then a heal, bouncing between the two constantly.

Shadowform is also one talent, and while Tree of Life is one, Natural Shapeshifter is another 3, that increases just that one function. Before Nat-Sh, they are the roughly the same cost, whereas Shadow Focus actually affects our functionality.

Re: Shadow form mana cost

Making direct class comparisons is never going to win an argument because blizzard have stated that classes are balanced on their overall abilities and talents not specific ones singled out.

However in the current environment, where spriest survivability is so low in pvp, I can see an argument that we are required to heal a significant portion of the time and perhaps there should be some pvp talent that helps us out with mana conservation with shifting forms. After you put up 3 dots, finding a 4th GCD for VE can be difficult and pumping enough damage into someone to make VE heals worthwhile is somewhat difficult atm.

Re: Shadow form mana cost

Re: Shadow form mana cost

Originally Posted by Kelesti

First off, Shadowform is supposed to be expensive by design. If it's cost was negligible, who's to stop the power-shifting every 6 seconds for empowered DoTs/MF/MB, and then a heal, bouncing between the two constantly.

But the problem is the last two years of Arena PvP, you'd spend more time out of shadowform than in it.

Otherwise I agree that you cannot compare shapeshifting to shadowform.

Re: Shadow form mana cost

It also costs us 1.5 seconds to switch back into shadowform and we do not gain any benefit besides stat changes whereas druids gain immunity to polymorph effects and snare/root removal. It is not always appropriate to compare class abilities, but I don't see a good argument for the high mana cost when the lost damage/mitigation and time wasted shifting back seem like high enough of a penalty.

Re: Shadow form mana cost

Shadowform mana cost is high because blizz knows we can deal with it! We are the mighty Shadow priests and yes we suffer on multiple fronts for being our purple translucent spec but it doesn't kill us, we get stronger by it! Harharhar ;D